


come with a good will, or not at all

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [284]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Frog is a darling, Gen, Gossip, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Maedhros is...a complicated mess, Sickrooms, Sticks and Frog come to visit, Sticks has many opinions but is trying to develop occasional tact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25818544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Russandol is tender-hearted; you’ve got to be careful with him.
Relationships: Amlach & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingon | Findekáno & Maedhros | Maitimo, Maedhros | Maitimo & Original Female Character(s)
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [284]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	come with a good will, or not at all

“You don’t have to tell us to be good,” Sticks grumbles, knowing that one of her plaits is uneven and hating it. Funny, for she never cared about that sort of thing before. Grime and tatters, that was all she was good for. All they were any of them good for, until Russandol set them free.

Estrela blinks, surprised. “I didn’t say—”

“Didn’t have to. You’ve a look.”

That makes Estrela huff between her lips. It might be a laugh. Estrela finds humor where Sticks doesn’t, because she’s older. Estrela knocks on the door, and Maglor—the bony bird-one—opens it. “Estrela,” he says. “Good morning. Oh—and…the children.”

“If he’s too tired,” Estrela says, quiet and polite, “They can visit another time.”

Sticks hates that voice of hers. Remembers Estrela as Belle, saying _yes sir_ to men who called her _half-faced bitch_ , who hurt her. _Can’t call you a whore, can we?_ they’d scoff, and Sticks hadn’t understood what they meant when she was smaller, but later, it was hard _not_ to know.

Estrela should just _scream_ at everyone, now. She shouldn’t ever have to be quiet.

But Russandol is speaking, from where the room is hiding him. “I’m not too tired,” he says. Sticks has missed him like night misses morning. Vast and dark. He _must_ be a little stronger, for his ears to be hearing so well. But of course, Russandol’s a sharp one, always has been. And he must be running mad in his head, lying there with naught to do.

Frog takes his words as adequate invitation and runs through the gap in the door, under Maglor’s arm. Sticks follows.

“Don’t rush—” Estrela says.

Nobody else is here but Maglor, at present, which is strange. Usually there’s half-a-dozen crowding about, Gwindor and Fingolfin and Fingon and brothers.

Russandol is sitting up a little, but only his head looks like itself, because he is swallowed up in blankets and old clothes. Might as well be a dead horse on a waste-heap, Sticks thinks, in private horror. She’s seen such things, and they hurt her.

Can’t say so to Russandol. He’s tender-hearted; you’ve got to be careful with him.

“Good morning,” says Sticks, bravely.

“Good morning,” says Russandol. “Estrela, you needn’t worry. I’m glad to see them.”

A relief to hear, though Russandol doesn’t look much like he can still be glad.

“It’s cold and hungry,” Frog says, climbing onto one of the chairs and sitting cross-legged.

“Are you?” Russandol asks. “Maglor can give you a blanket, and some of my soup. Fingon is fetching it as we speak.”

“Not _I_ ,” says Frog. “The sky. Cold and hungry.”

“Oh.” Russandol nods, thin-lipped and attentive. “Well, that’s winter.”

“We’ve seen winters before,” Sticks says, scowling at Frog. “Lots.”

Estrela talks to Maglor at the door in low, grown-up voices. Sticks doesn’t fix her mouth soon enough, and finds Russandol looking at her with his clever, narrowed eyes.

“Well, Miss Sticks,” he half-whispers. “Who’s causing you trouble? You’ve a blight hanging on you.”

“There’s lots of ones I don’t like here,” she says. “But you don’t want to hear of _that_.”

He chuckles, raspy-like. “Don’t I?”

“Shhh,” says Frog sternly. “The babies are sleeping.”

Russandol is startled by this. “What?”

Sticks is mortified. “He means the kittens. I tell him they can’t hear him talk from in here, it’s so far away, but he’s particular about it.”

Russandol nods. His hair is cobwebby at the ends, much darker at the roots. Sticks likes to study it. “Ah, yes. The kittens. Am I still to name one?”

“If you like.”

“I’ll have to think on it, you know.” Russandol’s heap of clothes and bedclothes goes up and down a little as he breathes. “Tell me what you two have been busy with, these days.”

Frog shrugs, shy again. He tucks his chin down.

Sticks keeps up the conversation. “Your pointy brother dug crackers into the ground, so we can’t go far.”

“Curufin? The landmines?”

"Yes.” She’s ashamed, always forgetting the proper words. “Estrela says we have to stay in here, or in the garden, or in the stables.” She remembers, too late, that Russandol is obliged to stay only in bed, and adds weakly, “It’s not so bad.”

Then Frog asks a terrible question.

“Are you happy?”

He’s so small; he doesn’t know any better. Still, the silence is dreadful, for now Maglor and Estrela aren’t talking, they’re listening. Yet Russandol laughs again, a curious little sound that Sticks thinks must be rather difficult for him. His chest and belly are hurt, after all; she saw. Seemed as if it had all been kicked in.

“Everyone is most kind,” he says, directing the answer to Frog. His tired eyes burn very bright, just as they did under moonlight, when Frog was down in the pit. “And they are always here. Estrela sat with me last night, and then Fingon relieved her, and Gwindor came in the grey hours before dawn—you know, Frog, when the sky has forgotten to be hungry, winter or not. Maglor came after that, and Caranthir has visited me to say his prayers in the morning. My uncle shall come soon, I suppose, and Celegorm comes after noon. Does that not sound happy to you?”

Sticks flinches. There is something awful in him. It wasn’t just Gothmog, or the hunter, or even the man who said Frog was his, that made Russandol as dead as Frog sometimes fears. There was another man, the night after the terrible whipping. He moved like a storm with the bones of his head standing out from the thunder of his shoulders, and he came to look at Russandol with a smile on his face.

Sticks feels as if she can see _him_ now. The storm eats her up in black spots.

Through the blur, she hears Estrela’s gentle, twisted voice says, “We’ll be back in a moment,” and the door shuts, a quiet ending. At any other moment Sticks would be almost unable to believe her luck; left alone with Russandol! But her own feelings, her own voice, are swallowed up and useless.

“They do this, sometimes,” Russandol says, low. “They try to set me free a little.”

“Free?” Frog asks.

“Mm.”

Sticks blinks hard. She says, “Now you’re just being savage.”

Russandol turns his face towards her. His hair falls forward; there is no one to tuck it behind his ears, and he doesn’t seem to want to do it himself. “Am I?”

The storm clears. Estrela told them to be good, so Sticks tries to catch herself back. “I shouldn’t say.”

“They’re all gone,” Russandol says. “You could.”

Frog whimpers.

“I know they got you terrible,” Sticks whispers, so afraid that she does what he says: speaks her mind. “But _they’re_ gone, too. The bad ones.”

Frog hushes her again, wringing his hands. Her words have done enough: it is as if there is no bed, no window, no kittens in the stable down the hill. They are beside the river once more.

Then Russandol’s hand—the left one, of course—escapes from under the blankets. His arm is bare to the shoulder. There are smooth, sore burn marks on the skin there, and the shoulder itself is one sunken lake of old fire. But Russandol doesn’t wince or whine. He pats _Sticks’_ shoulder, then stretches his hand out to Frog, who takes it in both his trembling paws.

“Listen here,” he says. “You mustn’t mind me. Why, Frog, when I was your age, I worried over everything. And it did no good. I should rather have tried to grow big and strong, instead of eating myself up with fear. So. There are many friends here, for you, and they’ll keep you from fear, if you let them. Nothing will be like it was… _there_.”

Sticks wants Estrela to scream. She wants Russandol to be as smooth and calm as good water. Her fear is not…is not _important_. “But you—”

“Sticks.” He is almost grim. Almost like Sol—Gwindor. “It isn’t the same, for me.”

(They wouldn’t call Estrela a whore. But Russandol—)

( _Sticks isn’t supposed to know what it means._ )

“Not for children?” she asks, and he laughs again.

“I know you’ve seen a good deal already, darling.”

_Darling!_

“But you’re right,” Russandol continues. “I won’t tell you the rest. I know you _could_ understand. But I won’t teach you. Do you see the difference?”

“Just want,” Frog mumbles, sighing. He hasn’t let go of Russandol’s hand. He chafes it with his small blunt thumbs, as if he warms it.

The door opens again. In comes Fingon—Doctor Fingon—with the soup. His black-and-yellow braids swing merrily.

“Hullo again, Maitimo!” he says. “And Sticks and Frog. Estrela told me I’d find you here, too.”

He’s always bright as a coin flung up to the sun, is Fingon. Sticks smiles at him to be pleasant, since Russandol is tetchy.

Fingon sets the soup down on his tidy table full of bottles and knives. Sticks recalls Estrela’s poor little collection of herbs and rags and colors, and thinks, defiantly,

_She’s a doctor, too._

“Frog,” Fingon says, “Would you mind releasing him, just for a moment, so that he can eat his soup?”

“The wonder of soup, Fingon, is that you can pour it quite easily down my throat,” Russandol says. Still savage, but with a twinkle in his eye.

Sticks glares at him.

“Very well, then,” Russandol says, sighing, before Fingon can say anything about pouring down throats. He wiggles his fingers and Frog lets them go. Then, with his hand flat on the bed, Russandol hoists himself upwards. His eyes screw shut when he does it; the bedclothes fall away. Where there are no bandages, Sticks sees his family name scratched in the same nasty letters that the bad ones used to cut the other word into him. Sticks cannot read _well_ , but she knows her letters, and how to sound them out.

“Oh, goodness,” Fingon exclaims, darting forward, but Russandol waves him away.

“Never mind, Fingon. They used to visit me there, too. Sticks will tell you quite readily that she is equal to the full range of my ghastliness.” His smile for Sticks is too warm for her to protest his words.

Frog, bereft of the hand, hops down from the chair and goes to play with the bottles on Fingon’s table. Fingon takes up the seat and holds out the bowl.

Sticks is at loose ends, as awkward as anything. Russandol does not want the soup, that’s plain as day. Fingon wants him to want the soup.

“How do you like Mithrim?” Fingon asks.

Damn him for being polite, too! It is just his way. Sticks says, “It’s small.”

Fingon laughs. “Larger than our tents, but smaller than the sky, isn’t it?”

“Sticks does not like everyone here,” Russandol says, setting down his spoon. “Now, _cano_ , shall we guess _whom_ , precisely, she does not like?”

Fingon makes a look like his father’s. Wise and kind and grumps. Gwindor is like that, but just the grumps.

“Maitimo, don’t tease her.”

“Tease _her_? Sure, it’s she who’s teasing me! I’ve been an invalid for half our acquaintance, and it’s always hell to pay with this one.” Russandol’s eyes are wide and as babyish as Frog’s, when Frog pretends to be an angel though his hands are full of mud and bugs. “Have you met Aredhel, Sticks? You’d like Aredhel.” He grimaces. “Or maybe not. I’m ahead of myself. Come along, Fingon. _Guesses_.”

Fingon considers, then mutters, “Curufin.”

“There’s the spirit. A bold choice. Is it Curufin, Sticks?”

“Maybe,” she says. He _is_ teasing, but that means he isn’t hurting very badly. Sticks pops her shoulders up, ready for whatever comes next.

Russandol says, “Curufin’s a maybe. Damn me, this is all tricks. Very well. Is it…Phillips?”

Sticks asks blankly, “Who?”

“Of course you wouldn’t know him. He keeps to himself. I like—I liked him quite well. All right, Fingon. You’ve a _maybe_ , you’re doing well. Keep going.”

“Oh. Is it I, Sticks?” Fingon asks, his face buttoned up as if Sticks will tell him _yes_ with her knuckles.

“You couldn’t give nobody any trouble,” Sticks says grandly. “Haven’t chased any bees into my ears, I’ll say that for you.”

“Chased any—” Fingon blinks. “Well, thank you. I…I’m fond of you, as well.”

“Fond? Didn’t say I was _fond_.”

Russandol laughs. It’s nearly real, under the pain it causes him; it makes Sticks’ throat swell up. “She has you there, Fingon. My turn to guess again. Hmm… has _Finrod_ done you ill?”

“You’re both so bad,” Sticks says. “And I’ll just tell you. It’s the goldy-girl _I_ don’t care for. High and mighty, she is. And the little pinchy one of you, Russandol. He’s mean.”

“The little…oh, no, no. Amras? _Pinchy_?” Russandol is quite shocked, and Sticks almost feels guilty. She must remind herself that he is still funning her.

“Galadriel…” Fingon says, then shakes his head.

“ _Is_ a touch hoity-toity, you were about to say? Fingon, really. Do be charitable.”

“I didn’t—”

“Can’t fool me, _cano._ You’ve a face like Leviticus. All judgment. Well, Sticks, you’ve rendered your opinions with scathing good grace. My long-lost hat is off to you.”

“Home,” Frog says distinctly, rolling one of the bottles back and forth along the desk.

Sticks doesn’t think she has heard him talk much of _home_ before.

“I’ll go find Estrela,” she says softly, all the game gone out of her. “Frog hasn’t had his breakfast yet.”

“And you?”

“No.” She twists one of her uneven plaits. “We wanted to see you.”

Every day, she wants to be certain that the hunter didn’t take him again; that the mountain isn’t keeping him forever.

“And I thank you for your sacrifice,” Russandol says. “You’ve done an invalid good. Tell Estrela that I must see you again soon, along with all my other friends.” He cannot touch them in farewell, because his only hand is hidden by Fingon, who leans close spooning up soup. Fed like a baby, Russandol swallows and swallows what he seems to find horrid since Fingon, the old _cano_ , wants him to eat.

In the moments between their leaving with Estrela, and the fading memory of his laughter, he has begun to look tired again. His skin is pale where it isn’t ruined. Sticks wonders if he has told Fingon about the horrible metal jaws that _they_ forced over his own.

_I know you could understand. But I won’t teach you._

_Do you see the difference?_

She wonders, suddenly, if he has told Fingon anything.


End file.
